Falling Down
by fencingfan
Summary: In a minute you can be torn down, but it takes months to get back up again. Wally West faces life as an amputee and has to learn how to stand again. One-Shot


**This was a story inspired by a prompt on the YJ Anon meme. The prompt was...**

**Roy Harper wasn't the only one who was captured by the Light. Something when wrong, be it on a mission or him just going out for groceries, either way Wally West was taken and the Superhero communities in a panic. He's found months later... with his leg amputated. How's a speedster to cope without the ability to run?**

**Warning: There may be some emotional triggers for loss of limbs  
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**Disclaimer: I own nothing, not even the prompt!  
**

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He's almost awake. He floats in a twilight world of gray and flashes of pain. He has got to be on an awful lot of meds to be in this state. His left leg hurts the most. He's sure he shouldn't be able to feel any pain from that leg with the amount of drugs he must be on, but he definitely feels something.

It's then that he first realizes that something is wrong.

He wakes up in due time. His eyes are still closed, but he can hear people moving and breathing. He can hear the heart monitor, and feel the cotton sheets. He smells antiseptic.

He realizes with a dark sinking feeling that his leg still hurts, he's been out for a while, it shouldn't still hurt this badly.

He truly wakes up, and it hits him. He sits up and sees it. It can't be just gone like that though, he-he can still feel it. Why would they play a trick like this on him. He wants to scream, he wants to beat someone up. He wishes nobody would look at him.

They all look at him and say it'll be okay. He almost breaks Uncle Hal's nose when he says it.

It is not okay. It won't just be okay.

He doesn't cry the first day, or any of the days after that. In the hospital it feels like he's under a microscope, it's not until he is finally allowed to be left alone in his room, with all the sharp things taken out of it, that he sobs. He pulls what's left pf his leg up to his chest and just screams and rages and cries. He says the nastiest words he knows, and he says the worst things he can about everyone he knows. He wanted to say all of these things to their faces when he was at the hospital, but he refrained. It just, he just wanted someone else to have to deal with that pain, he'd wanted to get rid of it.

He knows his mom and dad can hear him, despite this fact he rages over the fact that it took them two days to notice he was gone. When he finishes yelling he feels a small amount better, when he hears his mom crying to his dad late at night he wishes he was never born.

Wally tries very hard to find things to take his mind off the profound sense of loss, but it's like a hole in his life. His friends visit all the time the first month, they help him with what physical therapy he can do and walk on eggshells. The next month they visit less, things are getting a bit busy. Kaldur is the only one to visit at all the third month, he says the others send their best wishes.

Wally's parents make sure that Wally goes to his Justice League approved psychologist every week, Wally doesn't like the guy, he looks like a lobster.

Wally starts attending a support group run by the lobster guy. It's a support group for like medical loss or something because there are people there for things like blindness and loss of hearing, or loss of the ability to taste fruit. Yes that last one was made up, but Wally at least thought he would be in some sort of loss of leg exclusive club. Instead there are a bunch of people who have almost nothing in common trying to explain what it's like to suddenly not be able to do something. Wally doesn't talk much in the support group, there are other kids with lost limbs that can explain.

When his leg is healed enough to consider a prosthetic he automatically wants the running one, but he also doesn't want it. He's scared to fall.

He gets a limb he can run on anyway. He always practices on it, but he still has a lot of trouble with it, and that's just walking. He still has to pull himself up stairs using the railings and his un-amputated leg but he's slowly learning. He falls down three hundred and ninety eight times before he tries to even jog at normal speed on the leg. He falls three hundred ninety nine times.

It's seven months after he was rescued now. Over a year since he was captured in the first place. He really hasn't seen his Young Justice friends in a while. Uncle Barry visits more now, especially now that Wally is starting to settle. They don't need to be nearly so careful with kitchen knives now, and Wally is almost to the point where he can run full speed with a specially made prosthetic. True, it's not the original, and it will never be the same. But Wally is sure that if he can convince Batman to add rocket launchers it could be just as good.

Nobody expects it of him, there is no pressure at all. Wally expects it of himself though, so he puts on his costume and runs. The leg works well enough on water he finds out, even the chewing out by Barry later was totally worth it.

Wally and a kid from his support group hang out a lot. The kid's name is Issac, and he crushed his arm in a machine. He can sort of move it now, but he say's that he'll probably never regain full function of the arm. Wally and Issac try to pick up girls together, it almost never works unless they play the sympathy card. When they tell girls where they met they get them practically swooning. They like to think it's because of their dashing good looks.

Wally visits the Mountain in costume, everyone is surprised to see him there, when he runs they are shocked. Wally doesn't like to think of the fact that if they had kept in touch they would know he could run. He doesn't mention it though, and nobody else does either.

He fights a bank robber for the first time after the incident. When he was redesigning his costume he wondered whether he should cut the pants to hide his prosthetic of show it. In the end the fabric around the prosthetic hampers his movement, so he cuts his pant leg just under the knee.

He fights a surprised Captain Cold and wins in moments. He waits for the police and Flash to get there, and he gets mobbed. By reporters wanting to know his story and people who think he's just so brave. He smiles at them, but leaves as soon as the police get there. There's a story on the news and suddenly the entire world is asking, 'Wait is Kid Flash wearing a prosthetic leg?'

He eventually sort of had to have a press conference. He was actually sort of ready for it by that time, and you know what? He still had a leg, no it wasn't the original one, and it probably wouldn't ever be the same, but he could stand, he could walk, and he could run. It was better than dying, and that was good enough for him.

"So, I think you've all noticed my left leg!"

Wally smiled as the news people in the audience smiled awkwardly and tried not to look at it. Even if he hadn't wanted to have this press conference their faces were priceless.

"Well anyway, I lost it. I was kidnapped and they cut off my leg. You could say I lost it in the line of duty, but yeah. It was amputated right below the knee, and I have to wear a prosthetic to walk and run. I've been in physical therapy for about six months, and can pretty much do whatever I was able to do before. Okay so..."

Flash leaned over towards him and murmured 'questions' out of the side of his mouth. Wally smiled at him and leaned forward towards the mike.

"Um, Questions?"

A million people raised their hands and Wally was slightly overwhelmed, he pointed randomly at the crowd and a man with broad shoulders, black hair and glasses spoke.

"What do you plan to do now?"

"Um, nothing really different I guess. I can do pretty much anything I was able to do before now. I guess my balance isn't really as good, but I've been working really hard to get back to, well, sort of normal. Um, next?"

He pointed at a curly blond haired reporter with way too much makeup. She grinned wolfishly.

"How are you dealing with the loss of your leg? It must be an incredibly hard event to deal with."

Wally smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He really wasn't sure what these people wanted. He had screamed when it first happened, his mom had cried a lot, and yeah he was attending a support group and everything. It was hard, but it was a very private battle for him.

He looked at His uncle and Barry just made a small 'go on' motion.

Well if they really wanted to know.

"Well I swore and screamed and cried when it first happened, I mean, I'm a runner, what use am I when I can't even stand up? Uh, I was pretty depressed for a long time, it seemed like I lost some friends. After a while I started to work on walking with my prosthetic leg, and even when I was having trouble using it and my physical therapist was always telling me to take it slow it was better than when I was in a wheelchair or even on crutches, though I still use crutches sometimes. I don't know, I guess I just eventually got better, I made some new friends, and eventually got back on my feet."

There was an explosion on the other side of town and Wally looked up from the lectern. He smiled sheepishly at the reporters and then streaked off after his uncle. About twenty meters from the whole press conference thing his leg got stuck on a curb. He fell face forward onto the sidewalk. He grimaced, pushed himself up, then ran off. Despite the speed nobody could mistake the determination in his face.

They take care of the Trickster and send him back to the hospital, he tries to make Wally promise to play darts with him, but Wally gets out of it somehow. He just doesn't feel like it today. He goes home and goes straight to his room, despite his parent's questions. He hears the murmurs of Barry and his parent's talking downstairs, but he doesn't care to eavesdrop. He flops onto his bed face first and hugs his pillow. His mind goes over the fall a million and one times, and despite his best efforts tears leak out of his eyes.

He furiously wipes his eyes with his arm and shifts so he's sitting leaning against his headboard. He looks at the metal curve of a leg he has. He pulls his pillow out from under him and puts it over his face as he hyperventilates. He works so hard to just be a tenth of what he used to, and it's hard and he just wants to stop falling. Wally takes a deep breath and stands up from his bed, he's already exceeded his daily allowance of wallowing.

For the next month the biggest story is Kid Flash's new leg. There are a bunch of people with prosthetics who come to Central city just to meet him, and the army or armed forces or something schedule for him to meet some veterans. They spend about five minutes shaking hands and taking photos, they spend like the next two hours playing Mario Kart with the old guys telling war stories while Kid Flash tries to one up them with tales from his missions. Kid Flash has definitely better stories, but the old guys tell them better, so it's totally a tie.

Wally meets a bunch of child amputees and shakes hands and plays catch. And he falls sometimes, but he gets up eventually. He hangs out at the cave more, even if all of his friends act weird and don't really know how to treat him anymore.

He explodes at them eventually, it had been a long time in coming and it was only because of his new found patience that it hadn't happened already.

"STOP IT! STOP WALKING ON EGGSHELLS AND IGNORING THIS GIGANTIC FREAKING ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM! YES I NO LONGER HAVE LEG, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I SORT OF LOST IT FOREVER AGO, AND THERE IS LITERALLY NOTHING MORE THAT CAN BE DONE, SO STOP BEING SUCH LOSERS!"

He storms out after that, he doesn't come back until Robin breaks into his house and apologizes, then actually talks to him. Robin is thinking of changing his hero name to Nightwing when he moves away from Gotham, Robin is really too young a name for him now.

Artemis stops being such a loser too, they start going out. Issac is totally jealous when he learns that Wally is dating her. Artemis and Issac actually get along famously, the three and Zatanna, who Issac develops a giant crush on hang out a lot, sometimes Nightwing joins them, mostly he laughs when Wally tells him stories after the fact.

They find other Roy eventually. Looking at the timeline of when other Roy actually disappeared, it turns out that they actually met a few times. Other Roy is undeniably shocked when Kid Flash turns up and stops him from firing an explosive at Lex Luthor. Especially when Kid Flash has a very obvious prosthetic leg. When they get other Roy back to the hospital he asks how Kid Flash deals with it, being a speedster and all.

"Your clone and I have been best friends for years, call me Wally."

Wally smiles and puts his arm on his left leg, he then looks at the miniature Roy. He's like a little ball of hate and anger, he reminds him a lot of himself that first night home actually.

"I fell down an awful lot in the beginning, like a thousand times..."


End file.
